


Stories We Build, Stories We Tell

by conniptionns



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Art Student AU, M/M, art student Andrew, band isn't discussed, band student neil, but he plays tenor sax
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-03-31 02:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13965891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conniptionns/pseuds/conniptionns
Summary: But god, this model. Andrew shamelessly ogled his lithe body, watching as the muscles worked beneath the skin.At least, it was shameless, until he turned around and caught Andrew staring.When piercing blue eyes met his own, Andrew was surprised that his cheeks got hot. He wasn’t easily embarrassed, but there he was, blushing like a schoolboy who was caught out staring at other boys for the first time.Andrew couldn’t help himself though, this was the most beautiful man he had ever seen.





	1. Maybe (Luck of the Draw)

Andrew hated his figure drawing class.

Mostly because he hated all the naked women he had to draw. If he wanted to look at naked women, he would just be straight, but he didn’t and he wasn’t—so he was just trying to get to the end of the class and get the grade.

Notably, this particular Thursday, the girls in the class were creating a general hubbub outside the classroom, holding their artisan coffees and bagel sandwiches, gesturing with them as they tittered together. And even though it was Andrew’s last day of classes for the week, he could already tell it was going to be a miserably long class.

He took a detour to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet with his jeans pulled all the way up. Some days, he didn’t know why he was pursuing drawing at the University level. He had heard all his life that it was something that little kids did and he needed to join the real world sometime.

A toilet flushed somewhere in the background, but Andrew still had time to kill before class. He wished he could tell all his foster parents that he was in the real world. Andrew had been supporting himself since he was 18.

The foster system didn’t exactly set kids up to succeed. He was lucky that his brother had found him.

And how weird was that to say. His twin brother found him.

Aaron had found out he had a twin when his mother was drunk and angry. He was in middle school and she told him she had kept the wrong baby. He had been looking for Andrew ever since.

He found Andrew fourteen days before their 19th birthday. He was living in an apartment the size of a small cardboard box in Poughkeepsie.

Andrew would never forget the day his mirror image knocked on his door.

He had been gloriously shitfaced. Cross-faded beyond recognition and so close to finally feeling like he belonged in his skin. He had stared wide-eyed, wondering if there was a mirror on the other side of his door, when the mirror spoke.

“Oh my god. I found you. Finally.”

Aaron was actually the reason Andrew was sitting on a dirty school toilet with his good jeans on. Well, in Aaron’s defense, Andrew’s hatred of most people was what made him do that, but Aaron had found out that Andrew drew around Christmas when they were 21. They were 24 now and had been in college for two years.

Aaron came to college for international relations, saying something about taking Andrew all over the world. Andrew didn’t want to go anywhere, but he understood that it was something that Aaron needed. So he accepted it.

They had spent the summer in Nepal, taking in the sights. Nepal because Aaron had met a Nepali girl, Katelyn, at university and thought himself to be in love with her. That one Andrew didn’t entirely get, but they spent three weeks with Katelyn’s family and Andrew explored the country, while Aaron made moony-eyes at his girlfriend.

Andrew’s watch buzzed and he got up off the toilet. Flushing it to go along with the façade, before he trudged back to the classroom. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to whatever the fuck his classmates were so excited about.

When he got into the classroom, he headed toward an open easel. He tossed down his bag and pulled out his charcoals that were down to the nubs.

When he was certain that the girl next to him was completely engrossed in her conversation, he quickly nicked one of her pencils—brand new; he tucked it into his pencil pouch, content to use his little nubs for the day.

He glanced up right as the model dropped his robe—his, which was surprising to Andrew. It was mostly girls that were willing to drop trou for the art classes. Something about how the art majors were predominantly women, amidst the occasional male.

Apparently, some men were afraid of being deemed...inadequate by a classful of girls who would draw their assets to scale. It was all colossally funny to Andrew.

But god, this model. Andrew shamelessly ogled his lithe body, watching as the muscles worked beneath the skin.

At least, it was shameless, until he turned around and caught Andrew staring.

When piercing blue eyes met his own, Andrew was surprised that his cheeks got hot. He wasn’t easily embarrassed, but there he was, blushing like a schoolboy who was caught out staring at other boys for the first time.

Andrew couldn’t help himself though, this was the most beautiful man he had ever seen.

 

Andrew’s portfolio slowly became filled with a blue-eyed, freckled mess of a man. There was a slow progression into watercolor pencils from Andrew’s stark charcoal-only drawings. There was something about that messy ginger mop that begged to be brought to life.

Students were allowed to get close to the model. Encouraging them to this way and that. Never touching of course.

Andrew didn’t know if he was proud or ashamed that he knew that the model, Neil, had 693.5 freckles (if you counted his birthmark as half a freckle), 34 moles (one in the cleft between his buttcheeks), and a strange mottling of scars (that Andrew wanted to map with his tongue).

Andrew had so many nubs of the pencils that were used to sketch and color the man’s hair that Aaron had gotten him a custom 1000 pencil kit with the six colors Andrew liked to use best for Neil’s eyes and hair.

While his drawings suddenly burst forward with color, much to the adoration of his art advisor, Andrew’s staple had yet to change. Black mock-turtlenecks with a longer black undershirt over black jeans with black boots and a small cross necklace.

 

“Thursday will be Neil’s last class with us,” Andrew’s professor said at the end of class on a Tuesday, as everyone crammed pencils into their bags and oversized paper into art cases. “We’ve loved having him, but the music department needs their principle tenor saxophonist to give lessons to the other ensemble bands. Make sure to thank him for being such a valuable asset these past few months. He does have  a few one-on-one hours he’s willing to put aside for any seniors working on their capstone.”

Andrew was a sophomore, but he nearly tripped over his easel trying to get to Neil before any of the over excited girls in the class did. There was something he hated in the idea of Neil, alone and naked, with any of those girls. Andrew knew that he would never touch Neil without Neil’s explicit consent, but he didn’t trust any of the girls in his class as far as he could throw them.

Tripping over his easel is how he fell headlong into a naked Neil’s arms. 

Andrew turned the most unholy shade of red and he was certain that there was nothing in the world, save instant annihilation that could save him from the blush that was crawling out of his turtleneck and over his face.

“I’d been waiting for you to come over here and ask to see me again, but I didn’t realize you were that eager, “ Neil teased, mirth in his eyes.

Andrew spluttered, not knowing how to respond. It was okay, he didn’t need to know how to, Neil had that covered.

“If you’re free Thursday after class, it takes me about 7 minutes to clean up everything and get to my car, but I can come pick you up and we can get dinner?”

“I’d like that,” Andrew said.


	2. My Wild Sweet Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for elmarshall01

“So you’re going out with the guy you’ve been crushing on like forever?” Aaron asked, teasing bite to his voice.

“I wouldn’t say forever.”

“I wouldn’t say forever,” Aaron parroted back, mocking.

“Whatever the fuck dude, I have class.”

“Mm, is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Oh, fuck you, man!” Andrew called over his shoulder, slamming the door.

He had a bit of a walk to campus so he had plenty of time to think about the day. For as confident as Andrew was in his sexuality, he’d never had a boyfriend, and the thought that Neil might become his boyfriend was almost too much for Andrew to handle.

He walked with purposeful strides. Headphones in. Unapproachable face on. The same way he walked across campus everyday. The carefully crafted look that kept the hopeful pledges from coming up and talking to him, but when he saw that familiar tangle of bright red flame, Andrew cracked.

Stumbling over a crack in the cobblestone, Andrew went tumbling, his portfolio getting crushed underneath his body. He forgot about Neil in his anxious rush to check the damage to his art.

Andrew couldn’t afford a heavy protective case for his art. His work typically done on A5 pages, while his classmates worked with much larger paper. He told himself it was a case of stylistics. He knew that no matter what, his art would stand out among his entire University. His ability to put so much life into such a small paper would be something strong he had to show when it came to the end of the semester.

The Art Cohort only took 350 of the 1,000 art majors. His portfolio was the only thing he had to get him into that cohort, and if he didn’t get it, Andrew couldn’t afford to defer a semester and wait for the spring cohort announcements. If Andrew didn’t get this, Andrew was going to have to table the art dream.

He hadn’t told Aaron all of that. Part of him wished he had, because of everyone in the world, Aaron was the person Andrew wanted to call when he looked down at his ruined portfolio. Bitter tears bit at the corner of his eyes, born of the anxiety of failing at his passion and his dream. Andrew fisted both sides of a ripped portrait and it took everything in him not to scream.

When a scarred hand reached out and started shuffling the pages together, Andrew snapped to attention.

“Oh, Andrew.”

“Don’t pity me.”

“It’s not pity, it’s sympathy. I know this is a bitch. This is the equivalent of me falling on top of my tenor sax right before a big concert.”

“Not helping.” He wasn’t sniffling.

Neil grabbed all of the papers and picked out the ones that were salvageable. “Get up, come on. I’m going to call your professor with a family emergency, then we’re going to Michaels and then my apartment. Start stretching your hands and arms, art boy, we’re going to fix this portfolio.”

Andrew blinked owlishly up at Neil, not knowing how to respond.

“Come on, big guy. My car is just over there in Cyprus Lot.”

Andrew followed after Neil in a confused daze. Backpack slung over Neil’s shoulder and portfolio tucked neatly into Neil’s arm.

Andrew followed Neil in a haze through Michaels. He didn’t take note of Neil filling a cart full of thousands of dollars of art supplies, nor did he notice when Neil paid for all of it.

When Andrew snapped out of his daze, he was sitting cross-legged on the hood of Neil’s car and Neil was trying to coax him into drinking a large hot chocolate.

“Come on, buddy, drink up. You’ve gone into shock and you need sugar.”

Andrew drank and slowly started coming back into himself. When the life came back into his eyes, Neil gave him a genuine smile.

“Welcome back, Andrew.”

“What about class?”

“I told your professor that I had a family emergency and couldn’t make it, and I took the liberty of emailing her from your phone saying you were sick. You didn’t have a passcode and you weren’t responding. Don’t worry. I have a doctor hookup so I can get you a note if need be.”

Andrew nodded slowly.

“I need to get home and start on my portfolio I guess. It’s due Monday at 5pm.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Neil said. “We’re going to go back to mine. I have a practice room that we can revamp into an art studio and we’re going to get this done.”

“We?” Andrew asked, voice masking just how much he liked the plural pronoun.

“Yes,  _ we _ ,” Neil emphasized.

“ _ We _ ’re going to miss our date,” Andrew grouched.

“I just wanted to spend time with you, Andrew. I don’t care in what capacity. As long as it’s like a capacity of you liking me.”

“Like is such a juvenile thing to say,” Andrew groaned.

“You’re the sophomore,” Neil teased.

“Neil, I’m twenty-four.”

“You’re older than me and I’m a senior!” Neil exclaimed.

“Yeah.”

“Well now that I’ve bagged an older man. Get in the car, old man, we’ve got an art portfolio to save. Do your stretches.”

 

It was 11pm before Andrew stopped to eat. He felt weird recreating art pieces that he had already made, so he had started in on all new pieces. He had the lineart down for two pieces and wasn’t sure how the fuck he was going to make a 20-piece portfolio before Monday, but when Neil insisted he stop to eat, Andrew complied.

Somehow, Neil had curled himself loosely around Andrew while he drew. Neil had pulled a couch up to a drafting table that was nicer than anything Andrew had ever used. The couch was deep enough that Neil could curl up beside Andrew and place his legs behind Andrew’s back without being a nuisance.

At 2am, Andrew fell sleepily into Neil. The two of them sleeping together on the couch before jerking awake when Neil’s alarm blared from across the room. Andrew spilled onto the floor, but it was almost worth it to see Neil’s concerned face peek over the edge of the couch.

And Andrew couldn’t help but kiss the concern off his face.

The kisses were tender and soft. They held the words that Andrew couldn’t say  _ thank you _ and  _ this means so much to me _ . 

Eventually, they pulled apart because the alarm was ruining the moment. When Andrew sat up he remembered that he had lineart down for 5 out of 20 pieces and he started shuffling papers around.

“I’m going to pick up breakfast and coffee,” Neil said giving Andrew another kiss. “Text yourself from my phone, that way you have my number and you can call me if you need anything while I’m gone. I should have an extra toothbrush under the sink. Make yourself at home, even though I know you’re not going to move from this spot until I come back.”

Andrew gave him a sheepish smile.

“At least try to brush your teeth, stinky,” Neil said.

The text came through as Neil was climbing in his car.

_ Can I take you out to dinner on Tuesday as a thank you? _

**yes**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, really the end this time. I swear !!!!


	3. Stories We Build, Stories We Tell by Jose Gonzalez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've made this a one-shot with a bit of a continuation, because you were all right: this wasn't done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of my baby sister's 20th year around the sun. She will never read this, I hope to fucking Christ c:

Andrew hated his figure drawing class.

Mostly because he hated all the naked women he had to draw. If he wanted to look at naked women, he would just be straight, but he didn’t and he wasn’t—so he was just trying to get to the end of the class and get the grade.

Notably, this particular Thursday, the girls in the class were creating a general hubbub outside the classroom, holding their artisan coffees and bagel sandwiches, gesturing with them as they tittered together. And even though Andrew’s last day of classes for the week, he could already tell it was going to be a miserably long class.

He took a detour to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet with his jeans still on because the toilets were dirty as fuck. Some days, he didn’t know why he was pursuing figure drawing at the university level. He had heard all his life that it was just something that little kids did, and he needed to join the real world sometime.

A toilet flushed somewhere in the background, but Andrew still had time to kill before class. He wished he could tell all of his foster parents that he was in the real world. Andrew had been supporting himself since he was eighteen. The foster system didn’t exactly set up kids to succeed.

He was lucky that his brother had found him.

And how weird was that to say? His twin brother found him.

Aaron had learned he had a twin when his mother was drunk and angry. He was in middle school and she told him she kept the wrong baby. He had been looking for Andrew ever sense. The knowledge of that still gave him chills.

Aaron found Andrew fourteen days before their nineteenth birthday. Andrew had been living in an apartment the size of a small thimble in Poughkeepsie.

Andrew would never forget the day his mirror image knocked on his door.

He had been gloriously shitfaced. Cross-faded beyond recognition and so close to finally feeling like he belonged in his skin. He had stared wide-eyed, wondering if there was a mirror on the other side of his door, when the mirror spoke.

“Oh my god. I found you. Finally.” And then for the first time in his life, Andrew sank into an embrace as warm arms surrounded him.

Aaron was actually the reason Andrew was sitting on a dirty school toilet with his good jeans on. Well, in Aaron’s defense, Andrew’s hatred for most people was what made him do that, but Aaron had found out that Andrew drew around Christmas when they were twenty-one. They were twenty-four now and had been in college for two years.

Aaron had come to college for international relations, saying something about taking Andrew all over the world. Andrew didn’t want to go anywhere, but he understood that it was something that Aaron needed. So he accepted it.

They had spent the summer in Nepal, taking in the sights. Nepal because Aaron had met a Nepali girl, Katelyn, at university and thought himself to be in love with her. That one Andrew didn’t entirely get, but they spent three weeks with Katelyn’s family and Andrew explored the country, while Aaron made mooney-eyes at his girlfriend. Perhaps Aaron was entirely besotted, Andrew would give him that.

Andrew’s watch buzzed and he got up off the toilet. Flushing it to go along with the façade, before he trudged back to the classroom. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to whatever the fuck his classmates were so excited about.

When he got into the classroom, he headed toward an open easel. Tossing his bag down, he pulled out his charcoals that were down to the nubs. When he was certain that the girl next to him was completely engrossed in her conversation, he quickly nicked one of her pencils—brand new. He tucked it into his pencil pouch, content to use his little nubs for the day.

He glanced up right as the model dropped his robe—his, which was surprising to Andrew. It was mostly girls that were willing to drop trou for the art classes. Something about how the art majors were predominately women, amidst the occasional male.

Apparently, some men were afraid of being deemed...inadequate by a class full of girls, who would draw their assets to scale. It was all colossally funny to Andrew.

But god, this model. Andrew shamelessly ogled his lithe body, watching as the muscles worked beneath the skin.

At least, it was shameless, until he turned around and caught Andrew staring.

When piercing blue eyes met his own, Andrew was surprised that his cheeks got hot. He wasn’t easily embarrassed, but there he was, blushing like a schoolboy who was caught out staring at other boys for the first time.

Andrew couldn’t help himself though, this was the most beautiful man he had ever seen. And his drawings started to reflect it.

Andrew’s portfolio slowly became filled with a blue-eyed, freckled mess of a man. There was a slow progression into watercolor pencils from Andrew’s stark charcoal-only drawings. There was something about that messy ginger mop that begged to be brought to life.

Students were allowed to get close to the model. Encouraging them this way and that. Never touching of course.

Andrew didn’t know if he was proud of ashamed that he knew the model, Neil, had 693.5 freckles (if you counted his birthmark as half a freckle), 34 moles (one in the cleft between his buttcheeks), and a strange mottling of scars (that Andrew wanted to map with his tongue).

Andrew had so many nubs of the pencils he used to sketch and color the man’s hair that Aaron had gotten him a custom 1000 pencil kit with the six colors Andrew liked to use best for Neil’s eyes and hair.

While his drawings suddenly burst forward with color, much to the adoration of his art advisor, Andrew’s staple had yet to change. Block mock-turtlenecks with a longer black undershirt over black jeans with black boots and a small cross necklace.

“Thursday will be Neil’s last class with us,” Andrew’s art professor said at the end of class on a Tuesday, as everyone crammed pencils into their bags and oversized paper into art cases. “We’ve loved having him, but the music department needs their principle tenor saxophonist to give lessons to the other ensemble bands. Make sure to thank him for being such a valuable asset these past few months. He does have a few one-on-one hours he’s willing to put aside for any seniors working on their capstone.”

Andrew was a sophomore, but he nearly tripped over his easel trying to get to Neil before any of the over-excited girls in the class did. There was something he hated in the idea of Neil, alone and naked, with any of those girls. Andrew knew that he would never touch Neil without Neil’s explicit consent, but he didn’t trust any of the girls in his class as far as he could throw them/

Tripping over his easel is how he fell, headlong into a naked Neil’s arms.

Andrew turned the most unholy shade of red, and he was certain that there was nothing in the world, save instant annihilation, that could save him from the blush that was crawling out of his turtleneck over his face.

“I’d been waiting for you to come over here and ask to see me again, but I didn’t realize you were that eager,” Neil teased, mirth in his eyes.

Andrew spluttered, not knowing how to respond. It was okay, he didn’t need to know how to, Neil had that covered.

“If you’re free Thursday after class, it takes me about 7 minutes to clean up everything and get to my car, but I can come pick you up and we can get dinner?”

“I’d like that,” Andrew said.

Aaron waited until Thursday to tease Andrew.

“So, you’re going out with the guy you’ve been crushing on for like ever?” Aaron asked, teasing bite to his voice.

“I wouldn’t say forever.”

“I wouldn’t say forever,” Aaron parroted back, mocking.

“Whatever the fuck dude, I have class.”

“Mm, is that what the kids are calling it these days?

“Oh, fuck you, man!” Andrew called over his shoulder, slamming the door.

_ Good luck and don’t break a leg! _ The immediate text from his brother read.

Andrew snorted. He had a bit of a walk to campus, so he had plenty of time to think about the day. For as confident as Andrew was in his sexuality, he’d never had a boyfriend. The thought that Neil might become his boyfriend was almost too much for Andrew to handle.

He walked with purposeful strides. Headphones in. Unapproachable face on. The same way he walked across campus everyday. The carefully crafted look that kept the hopeful pledges from coming up and talking to him, but when he saw that familiar tangle of bright red flame, Andrew’s façade cracked.

Stumbling over a crack in the cobblestone, Andrew went tumbling, his portfolio getting crushed underneath his body. He forgot about Neil in his anxious rush to check the damage to his art.

Andrew couldn’t afford a heavy, protective case for his art. His work, typically done on A5 pages, while his classmates worked on much larger paper. He told himself it was a case of stylistics. He knew that no matter what, his art would stand out among his entire University. His ability to put so much life into such a small paper would be something strong he had to show when it came to the end of the semester.

The Art Cohort only took 350 of the 1,000 art majors. His portfolio was the only thing he had to get him into that cohort, and if he didn’t get it, Andrew couldn’t afford to defer a semester and wait for the spring cohort announcements. If Andrew didn’t get this, Andrew was going to have to table the art dream.

He hadn’t told Aaron all of that. Part of him wished he had, because of everyone in the world, Aaron was the person Andrew wanted to call when he looked down at his ruined portfolio. Bitter tears knifed their way out the corner of his eyes, born of the anxiety of failing at his passion and dream. Andrew fished post sides of a ripped portrait and it took everything in him not to scream.

When a scarred hand reached out and started shuffling the pages together, Andrew snapped to attention.

“Oh, Andrew.”

“Don’t pity me.”

“It’s not pity, it’s sympathy. I know this is a bitch. This is the equivalent of me falling on top of my tenor sax right before a big concert.”

“Not helping.” He wasn’t sniffing.

Neil grabbed all of the papers and picked out the ones that were salvageable. “Get up, come on. I’m going to call your professor with a family emergency, then we’re going to Michaels and then my apartment. Start stretching your hands and arms, art boy, we’re going to fix this portfolio.”

Andrew blinked owlishly up at Neil, not knowing how to respond.

“Come on, big guy. My car is just over there in Cyprus Lot.”

Andrew followed after Neil in a confused daze. Backpack slung over Neil’s shoulder and portfolio tucked neatly into Neil’s arm.

He followed Neil in a haze through Michaels. HE didn’t take note of Neil filling a cart full of thousands of dollars of art supplies, nor did he notice when Neil paid for all of it.

When Andrew snapped out of his daze, he was sitting cross-legged on the hood of Neil’s car and Neil was trying to coax him into drinking a large hot chocolate.

“Come on, buddy, drink up. You’ve gone into shock and you need sugar.”

Andrew drank and slowly started coming back into himself. When the life came back into his eyes, Neil gave him a genuine smile.

“Welcome back, Andrew.”

“What about class?”

“I told your professor that I had a family emergency and couldn’t make it, and I took the liberty of emailing her from your phone saying you were sick. You didn’t have a passcode and you weren’t responding. Don’t worry. I have a doctor hookup so I can get you a note if need be.”

Andrew nodded slowly.

“I need to get home and start my portfolio, I guess. It’s due Monday at 5pm.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Neil said. “We’re going back to mine. I have a practice room that we can revamp into an art studio and we’re going to get this done.”

“We?” Andrew asked, voice masking just how much he liked the plural pronoun.

“Yes, we,” Neil emphasized.

“We’re going to miss our date,” Andrew grouched.

“I just wanted to spend time with you, Andrew. I don’t care in what capacity. As long as it’s like a capacity of you liking me.”

“Like is such a juvenile thing to say,” Andrew groaned.

“You’re the sophomore,” Neil teased.

“Neil, I’m twenty-four.”

“You’re older than me and I’m a senior!” Neil exclaimed.

“Yeah.”

“Well, now that I’ve bagged an older man. Get in the car, old man, we’ve got an art portfolio to save. Do your stretches.”

It was 11pm before Andrew stopped to eat. He felt weird recreating art pieces that he had already made, so he had started in on all new pieces. He had the lineart down for two pieces and wasn’t sure how the fuck he was going to make a twenty piece portfolio before Monday, but when Neil insisted that he stop to eat, Andrew complied.

Somehow, Neil had curled himself loosely around Andrew while he drew. Neil had pulled a couch up to a drafting table that was nicer than anything Andrew had ever used. The coach was deep enough that Neil could curl up beside Andrew and place his legs behind the other man without being a nuisance.

At 2am, Andrew fell sleepily into Neil. The two of them sleeping together on the couch before jerking awake when Neil’s alarm blared from across the room. Andrew spilled onto the floor, but it was almost worth it to see Neil’s concerned face peek over the edge of the couch.

And Andrew couldn’t help but kiss the concern off his face.

The kisses were tender and soft. They held the words that Andrew couldn’t say:  _ thank you _ and  _ this means so much to me _ .

Eventually, they pulled apart because the alarm was ruining the moment. When Andrew sat up, he remembered that he had lineart down for 5 out of 20 pieces and he started shuffling papers around.

“I’m going to go pick up breakfast and coffee,” Neil said, giving Andrew another kiss. “Text yourself from my phone that way you have my number and you can call me if you need anything while I’m gone. I should have an extra toothbrush under the sink. Make yourself at home, even though I know you’re not going to move from this spot until I come back.”

Andrew gave him a sheepish smile.

“At least try to brush your teeth, stinky,” Neil said.

When Neil got back, Andrew was drooling next to his drawing and he only woke up because Neil was slowly trying to extract the page from underneath his slobbery face without ripping or wetting it.

After that, the weekend was a blur of Red Bull, coffee, and smudged, hurried kisses, but somehow, at 5pm on Monday, Andrew was handing his finished portfolio to the review board with his hand in a brace.

The text came through as Neil was climbing into his car after dropping Andrew off at home.

_ Can I treat you to dinner tomorrow as a thank you? _

**Yes.**

The time between hitting the sheets Monday evening and his alarm going off at 5pm on Tuesday was an unforgettable blip of sleep. One second he was out, and the next Shoop by Salt n Pepa was blaring from under his face, telling him that he had dinner with the man of his dreams in an hour.

Aaron hit him in the chest with a pair of pants as he tried to run, brief-clad, to his car. He hurriedly thanked his brother and ran to the bus stop. Neil was going to meet him at a tiny hole in the wall because Andrew couldn’t pick him up, and insisted that it wasn’t his treat if Neil picked him up. Neil had acquiesced after ten minutes of a sleepy Andrew trying to convince him, through barely legible texts, that it wasn’t romantic.

Fifteen minutes in public transport across from a homeless schizophrenic off his meds was almost enough to convince Andrew that he was never going to be enough for Neil. Not that he really knew much about Neil, except that tracing his appropriately visible scars had been incredibly erotic, and when he wasn’t cramping from what was probably early onset carpal tunnel, he wanted to get Neil out of his clothes and lick every inch of him.

Andrew debated texting him that, but it wasn’t exactly romantic, first date material. Or at least, that was what Aaron had reminded him as he ran out the door, in pants, that last time.

He was still debating the merit of sending the text when he slid into the booth across from Neil and just blurted it out, loud enough for the energetic waitress to hear as she bounced up.

All three of them froze: Neil, Andrew, and the waitress whose smile had frozen on her face.

The waitress recovered first, because in the scintillating world of customer service, she had no doubt heard worse things said to her person as opposed to a recipient that, hopefully, welcomed it.

“Are you guys here on a date? You’re actually a really cute couple, you’d make cute babies!”

Andrew and Neil both gave her a confused look in response.

“This has been an incredibly long shift. I’m going to walk into the kitchen and then come back and we can pretend I never said that.”

Luckily for them, she was exactly what was needed to break the ice. Neil started giggling and Andrew couldn’t help but smile at the response.

“I think we should leave her a massive tip and we should see about continuing this conversation after dinner,” Neil offered.

Andrew only gave a hopelessly besotted smile in response. He was going to have to make it up to Aaron for all the shit he had talked about him and Katelyn, because Andrew had just become the biggest sap of them all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaving the previous chapters up for the comments. Luv u all.
> 
> Pls comment


End file.
